Down with porn ban - IT Protests

[VelMurugan]

Down with porn ban

Hackers took over an Indonesian government website for several hours to protest against a new law banning online pornography, the information ministry said.

The protesters posted a message on the ministry of information website challenging it to "prove that the law was not drafted to cover the government's stupidity."

Indonesia's parliament passed a law against producing or accessing websites with pornographic or violent content.

"The message seemed to be directed at the law that was just passed by parliament," said ministry official Ferdinandus Setu, adding the site was taken down for a period but was now back to normal.

The new law, which has still to be approved by the president, provides for a maximum penalty of six years in jail or a fine of up to 1 billion rupiah ($110,000) for disseminating pornographic material online.

The ministry said it would start distributing software to allow Internet users to block pornographic sites.

Sylvia Sumarlin, who chairs the Indonesian Internet Providers Association, warned that it would take time to block all pornographic sites. "We have recommended that the government form a body to check websites and block unacceptable ones throughout the country. The government accepted our recommendation, but it will take time to implement it and in the meantime the ministry is recommending the use of the filtering software," she said.

Source : IndiaTimes